“I won’t say anything,” Daniel said, angling them to the diner.
But it seemed unlikely that Gally had been lying if he had offered to exchange a dozen wishes for a child that might not live long enough for him to take. The shadows of bodies moved behind the glass, and nervous, Trisk tried to fix her hair, aware that she smelled like oil and gas. Still, it was comforting not to be alone anymore. She could tell Daniel was feeling the same way, a worried eagerness in him when he lurched ahead to yank the door to the diner open. “Thank God they’re not closed,” she said as Daniel hesitated just inside, looking for an empty table. She ran her fingers through her long hair again, trying to get it decent.
“You look fine,” Quen said stiffly, then took her arm, drawing her back into the sun a moment longer. “I’m sorry,” he said, and her eyes shot to his. “For judging you,” he added, gaze dropping. “Your decisions, while not those I’d choose, were made with sound reasoning. I’m a total jerk,” he added, lips pressed and focus distant.
She flushed as she remembered the passion between her and Kal. There’d been no reason, just emotion. “No, you’re not,” she said, a faint smile crossing her face. She took a breath to say more, but Daniel leaned out the door.
“Uh, I have a table,” he said, and Trisk nodded, suddenly a hundred times hungrier.
“I look like a disaster victim,” she said softly as she followed Daniel in, feeling self-conscious when the locals looked up. “On second thought, I fit right in,” she added, seeing the weary expressions, tense with doubt and fear. There was a radio set to the news blaring from behind the counter, and it was obvious that was why most of them were here.
Quen’s hand on her shoulder was comforting, his confidence and attitude of protection welcome as he raised his hand at the cook’s inquiring glance and called loudly over the radio, “Can we have three hamburgers, sodas, and fries?”
“Sit where you can,” the cook answered back, and Quen angled them toward a side booth, where Daniel anxiously waited. Her eyes darted over the clientele, clusters of them oblivious as they wove between the tables.
“Everyone here is an Inderlander,” Quen said, leaning to breathe the words in her ear.
“I noticed,” she whispered back, smiling thinly in case anyone made eye contact. There were mostly witches, evident by their amulets and dexterous fingers when seen all together. A table of Weres was in one corner, the alphas suave and cool, mingling freely with their rougher subordinate kin. Their tattoos set them apart. In the back were living vampires, every one of them model perfect, every one of them scared.
Trisk slipped into the booth, sliding down when Daniel sat beside her. Eyeing everyone sourly, Quen took the seat across from them, the flats of his forearms on the table to make his fisted hands obvious.
“My God,” Daniel said as he read the headlines on the paper someone had left at the table. “China is gone. Borders closed, no communication.”
“You didn’t drop anything on China,” Quen said.
“We didn’t drop anything here, either,” Trisk said, elbowing Daniel when the server approached with their drinks.
Daniel looked up, folding the paper and tucking it away with a guilty quickness. Trisk eagerly reached for her glass, eyes watering when she gulped the soda down, the bubbles making her eyes burn. “Water, please,” she asked before the woman left, and Daniel held up two fingers. Quen sipped his drink, his eyes never leaving the gathered people.
“Don!” one of the patrons called. “Turn it up. They’re talking about Sacramento.”
The cook wiped his hands off on his apron and fiddled with the radio behind the counter. It crackled and popped, and then cleared. “. . . Global Genetics, which is now closed and barricaded behind government forces, is being blamed,” the announcer said, clearly caught halfway through his newscast. “Early numbers indicate that the tactical virus affects almost half the population, with a quarter of that succumbing.”
The sweet bubbles bursting in her throat went flat. Someone swore, quickly hushed. “Both susceptibility and immunity appear to run in families, and people are advised to stay at home until it’s discovered how the virus is being transmitted.”
Trisk pushed her drink away, her fingers cold from the glass. Someone was crying.
“Turn it off,” another man demanded, standing to get out of the way of the sobbing woman who was being helped out by an older man. “We have to make a decision. Right now, before things get uglier. I know this hurts. Everyone here has lost friends, and I’m sorry that we can’t give everyone the proper burial they deserve, but if we don’t do something, by tomorrow we will be fighting not just this new disease, but everything else decomposing bodies bring with them. We need to do a house-to-house check at the bare minimum.”